No drug currently on the market could stop the bacteria (CCSS Level: Grade 9, Words: 345)

Jan 17, 2017 Science & Technology

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A US woman in Nevada has died from a superbug that could not be controlled by any antibioticavailable in the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said. The woman's condition was found to be beyond help, and in the end even though 26 different antibiotics were tested, not a single one was found to be effective.

The Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) bacteria is shown in this medical illustration provided by the CDC.

The woman was in her 70s, and had recently returned to the US after a long visit to India. She had broken her leg while there and had been admitted to hospital many times before coming back to the US. After being admitted to an acute ward at a hospital in Nevada in mid-August, she finally succumbed to the infection in September.

This rare case nevertheless shows the growing dangers of drug resistance. Antimicrobial agents (drugs that kill bacteria), which include antibiotics, have been used for the past seventy years to treat patients with infectious diseases. However the CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden has called these powerful germs that no antibiotic can kill "nightmare bacteria", due to the danger they pose.

No matter how effective an antibiotic is at killing bacteria, new drugs will be needed as the bacteria mutate and grow more resistant to the existing drugs. "Antibiotic resistance occurs as part of a natural evolution process, and it can be significantly slowed but not stopped," the CDC notes on its website. "New antibiotics will always be needed to keep up with resistant bacteria as well as new diagnostic tests to track the development of resistance."

While this recently reported case is frightening, it is also unusual. The patient had been in and out of hospitals in India for two years after fracturing the large bone in her leg and developing a bone infection. "India has a notoriousreputation for this [type of bacteria, ]" a CDC spokesman commented. "Travel-related questions are becoming much more important ... and just reinforce that we are a very small world."